New YouTube homepage launches to all users

You may have noticed we've been experimenting with a new YouTube homepage. After countless user studies and community surveys, one thing came in loud and clear: the homepage in its current form doesn’t mean much to most of you, and could be more personally relevant. So the goal of this experiment was to put more of an emphasis on "videos for you.”

To pave the way for this experiment, we removed some of the less-used modules such as "Videos Being Watched Now.” Then we moved modules like "Spotlight" and "Featured Videos" over to the right side. All of these changes were to make room for a combined list of personally relevant videos made up of recommendations for you, your subscriptions activity, and videos being shared by your friends.

Recently we opened up the experimental homepage to anyone who wanted to try it out. Millions of users opted in and now have this new version set as their homepage. Many of the people who tried the experimental homepage filled out our feedback form. While not everyone loved it, most people thought the new homepage was better than the old homepage.

Here are some of the enhancements offered by the new homepage (logged in users only):

• Increased focus on videos that matter to you (subscriptions, friend's sharing, recommendations)
• You can easily filter your homepage to show only the latest uploads from your subscriptions
• Don't miss anything; if a channel uploads four videos in a day, you’ll see all four - instead of just the latest video
• Quick access to the inbox when you have new messages or comments
• Knows what you have seen (videos you've watched are grayed out)
• Remove any video (hover and click the "x" button)

Although some of you might miss some features, we think this latest version is a step in the right direction. It’s simpler, more personal, and it makes it easier to follow and watch the videos that are meaningful to you. So today we're rolling out this new homepage for all logged in users worldwide.

We're dedicated to making YouTube the best place for you to discover and share great videos. Please send us your feedback in a video, in the forums, on this blog or on Twitter. As always, we’ll be listening and taking your feedback very seriously.

The YouTube Team

More about → New YouTube homepage launches to all users

On the Rise: Help these users get on the homepage!

Check it out, people! This month’s “On the Rise” nominees are in -- and we need your help to choose a winner.

Just to remind you how this works: we identify a handful of channels who’ve rapidly increased their subscriber base in the last 30 days but haven’t yet hit the 100,000 mark. You watch their videos, and then vote for your favorite in the top right-hand corner of this blog. You have until noon PT on January 14, 2011, to make your choice. Once we have a winner, we’ll give them a big leg up with a feature on the YouTube homepage and videos page, as well as love on Facebook and Twitter. Past winners emilynoel83 and justjesse197 more than doubled the number of subscribers gained during the month of their spotlight versus the previous month, and Emily is close to hitting the 100,000 subscriber milestone herself.

And now, in alphabetical order, here are the nominees for the homepage spotlight on January 22:

Michael Aranda
You never quite know what you’re going to get with a Michael Aranda video: one minute he’s dropping knowledge, the next he’s freak-dancing -- or turning his car into an art project.



Luke Conard
Catchy pop songs. A sense of humor. Adorably goofy videos....What’s not to like about Luke Conard?



Tori Kelly
Tori Kelly’s just 18 years old, but she plays piano and guitar and sings like nobody’s business. Check out one of her original songs.



Josh Sundquist
Josh Sundquist has quite a personal story: overcoming childhood cancer and a leg amputation to become an athlete, inspirational speaker and author. Check out his sweet and affecting animations.



Mia Quagliarello, Community Manager, recently watched “Taylor Momsen escapes paparazzi.”

More about → On the Rise: Help these users get on the homepage!

Home sweet Homepage

Starting today, you might notice a button on YouTube.com asking if you want to check out an experimental homepage we’ve been working on. It’s an opt-in experiment, offering a homepage that has a real emphasis on a personalized video browsing and watching experience.

Some of the enhancements include:

• Combined list - Merges your subscriptions, friend activity, and recommendations into one easier-to-scan list (and a “Subscription uploads” tab if you only want to see subscriptions)
• Don’t miss a video - If a channel uploads 4 videos in a day, you’ll see all 4 - instead of just the latest video
• Delete anything - Hover over any video you don’t want to watch and click ‘x’
• Or just grey it out - Videos you’ve already watched will be grayed out - so even without deleting, you’ll know where you left off
• Help me re-find stuff I just watched - Your homepage will include your recent likes and favorites so you can easily get back to them
• Easy inbox - Links to your inbox (personal messages & comments) are front and center
• Load much more - Watch older videos - all without leaving the homepage

You can see where these features are located by clicking the thumbnail of the page below:

To give it a try, just click this link. You can always revert back to the classic homepage by clicking on the “Back to classic homepage” link that you’ll see when you’re on the new homepage. We’re hoping to learn what works best for the YouTube community, and explore ways to make you feel right at home. Please tell us what you think through this feedback form.

John Fisher, recently watched, "Crazy Oklahoma State Interception vs. Oklahoma - November 27, 2010".

More about → Home sweet Homepage

Choose the next community member to go on the homepage

On the Rise is a program where you determine which YouTube upstart appears on the homepage. emilynoel83, a morning news anchor who creates makeup tutorials, won the inaugural edition and was featured in November, promoted socially, and covered in the blogosphere. Emily doubled the number of subscribers she acquired in the month (compared to the month before), and her catalog also saw a boost in views.

It was so much fun that we want to do it again, taking four more channels that’ve recently seen good subscriber growth but still have less than 100,000 subscribers and putting them up to your discerning tastes. Please vote for your favorite channel in the poll in the top right corner of this blog by Tuesday, December 7, and we’ll put the lucky winner on the homepage on Saturday, December 11. Here are the nominees, in alphabetical order:

corycotton is home to a group of trick-shot basketball entertainers whose swooshes and dunks will leave you floored:



JustJesse197 is a showcase for the amazing tricks and utter cuteness of a five-year-old shortie Jack Russell Terrier named Jesse:



ShowMeTheCurry is Hetal Jannu and Anuja Balasubramanian, who offer easy-to-follow lessons in Indian cooking:



tjw1963 features Teresa teaching the world to crochet one stitch at a time:






Now go vote!

Mia Quagliarello, Community Manager, recently watched “Candlelight - The Maccabeats.”

More about → Choose the next community member to go on the homepage

On the Rise: Pick which YouTube upstart goes on the homepage

More and more of our YouTube partners are hitting subscriber numbers in the 100,000s and even in the 1,000,000s. We want to help more of you to get to those kind of subscriber numbers, which is why we’re starting a new monthly feature called “On the Rise.”

Here’s how it works: every month, we’ll pull together a list of partner channels whose subscriber rate has quickly accelerated in the last 30 days but who still have less than 100,000 subscribers. We’ll winnow that list down to a handful of channels, and then we’ll ask the community to vote on one channel to be featured on the YouTube homepage and get promoted through our social media channels on Twitter and Facebook.

So, here are the four channels vying for the inaugural spotlight, in alphabetical order:

emilynoel83 is Emily Eddington, a 26-year-old morning news anchor whose channel is devoted to all things beauty, particularly fun ideas for TV news makeup.



golf says it all: this channel consists of golf videos, tips and lessons, aggregated from Tour Links Putting Greens, BunkerShot.com, NationalSchoolForms.com and Show Me the Golf.



kalebnation, a 22-year-old vlogger who says he enjoys “wild rumpuses.”



optibotimus is “just a simple guy” that does toy reviews. “I typically stick to what I grew up loving,” he writes on his channel. “Transformers, mostly.”



You’ve got one week, until the end of the day on November 2, to vote for your favorite in the top right corner of this blog. We plan to showcase the winner on our homepage on November 6. You can also nominate yourself or your friends for next month’s feature in the comments section of this blog post (though please note: comments are moderated due to spam).

Mia Quagliarello, Product Marketing Manager, recently watched “The Giants Win The Pennant!”

More about → On the Rise: Pick which YouTube upstart goes on the homepage

Release Notes: Nonprofit Program, Private Sharing, Streams

News from the YouTube universe... 
Nonprofit program launches in Australia and Canada: Like their American and British cohorts, nonprofits in Australia and Canada can now apply to become part of the YouTube Nonprofit Program. Members receive free branded channels, custom thumbnails, longer video uploads, and call-to-action overlays. For more information, and to apply, please go to www.youtube.com/nonprofits.

Easier private video sharing: You no longer need to be friends with someone in order to share a private video with them. You can either generate a special URL that up to 25 people can click on, or select the "Private share with YouTube users" option on the video's details page and write in the username(s), separated by a comma, with whom you'd like to share (see screenshot below). After you click "send," the recipient will see the video in his or her inbox. 

Streams retired: Streams was an experimental product launched in TestTube, our ideas incubator, three years ago. We know some of you enjoyed watching videos while chatting with other users, but we've not been able to give Streams the time and attention needed to make it a more mainstream offering. Thus, we've decided to retire it for now as part of our pre-spring cleaning effort, though we hope to build other features that make it easier for you to share and talk about videos with friends. 

Spotlight enhancements: The homepage spotlight is a periodic module featuring thematic or timely content selected by YouTube. (If you don't see it on your homepage, add it here.) Used to be we *had* to feature four videos and a channel in the module. But now we have a lot more flexibility: we can spotlight just one video, as we might in a breaking news situation, or multiple videos rotating randomly every time the page refreshes, as we might for a guest curatorship or spotlight featuring many contest entries. This might be hardly noticeable to you, but we're excited about the programming possibilities this change brings. 

The YouTube Team

More about → Release Notes: Nonprofit Program, Private Sharing, Streams

Vote on 2010's Most Critical Issue

Exactly one year ago today, Barack Obama took office as President of the United States -- and what a year it's been. From the economic crisis and the battle over health care, to the global challenge of climate change and the threat of terrorism at home and abroad, 2009 was a challenging one for the country, and most Americans would agree the nation is facing some of our biggest and most complex challenges in decades.

Today on our homepage we're featuring analysis of the President's first year from Fox News, PBS News Hour and Agence France-Presse. We're also asking you to weigh in on which issue should be the top priority for the country in 2010, and what you think should be done about it.



With our new Google Moderator tool, you can submit your ideas in both video and text on CitizenTube and vote on your favorites submitted by others. We'll promote the most popular submissions on YouTube in the lead-up to the President's annual State of the Union address, which we'll be streaming live on YouTube next Wednesday night, January 27, 2010, at 9 p.m. ET / 6 p.m. PT.

Steve Grove, Head of News and Politics, recently watched "President Obama's Inaugural Address"

More about → Vote on 2010's Most Critical Issue

Remembering Dr. Martin Luther King Through His Words

Dr. King, one of the United States' most beloved national heroes, led the nation through the struggles of the civil rights movement with great courage and impassioned oration. Today, in honor of Martin Luther King Day, the Washington Post is inviting people to share videos illustrating which of Dr. King's words inspired them most. We're showcasing videos on the YouTube homepage today that feature portions of his speeches -- both the familiar and the lesser-known -- as performed by users.

User baratunde recites a section of a speech delivered by Dr. King at Riverside Church on April 4, 1967, condemning the Vietnam War:



Just about every schoolchild in the United States, and many around the world, has heard Martin Luther King's speeches and listened to the messages within. Do you have a favorite section or phrase that you find particularly moving, inspirational, thought-provoking or even controversial? What are you memories or impressions of Dr. King and the words he left behind?

The Washington Post is still collecting videos from its readers and the YouTube community, which they will feature on washingtonpost.com. Visit the Washington Post site to submit your own using YouTube Direct.

Olivia Ma, News and Politics Manager, recently watched "Nov. 2, 1983: Reagan Approves MLK Day."

More about → Remembering Dr. Martin Luther King Through His Words

One Week to Make Your Pitch to Attend Davos!

Is there one issue facing the world today that you feel passionate about? Have you always wanted to take your cause directly to people who have the power to do something about it, but lacked access to have your voice heard? Now is your chance to make your pitch - and win a spot at this year's World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where world leaders will gather to hear what you have to say about the issue that matters most to you.

There is just one week left to submit a video for the opportunity to go to Davos. Each year, heads of state, business leaders, and social entrepreneurs gather at the World Economic Forum to discuss the most critical challenges facing citizens and nations around the world. And this year, one of you will get direct access to a special panel of these leaders at the Forum, to let them know why your cause matters.

The submission deadline is Monday, January 4, 2010, and all videos should be no longer than three minutes. Speak clearly and from the heart. Five finalists will be selected by a judging panel comprised of Paolo Coelho, Arianna Huffington and Muhammad Yunus. These finalist videos will then go to public vote on January 8, with a winner announced on January 19.

This is the chance you've been waiting for... unprecedented access to the world's most powerful leaders who can make a difference for your cause. Visit the Davos YouTube channel to submit your video and make your pitch to the world.




Steve Grove, News & Politics, recently watched "Mahmoud Jabari - Davos Competition."

More about → One Week to Make Your Pitch to Attend Davos!

Happy Solstice!

In honor of the shortest day of the year (at least here in the northern hemisphere), we've changed our homepage logo today to have a wintry feel. Happy holidays!

The YouTube Team

More about → Happy Solstice!

“The Beautiful Life” Makes Its YouTube Premiere

 Update (5pm PT): Wondering which YouTube videos inspire the creator of TBL? Watch Ashton's celebrity playlist here.


++++++++++++++++

Today we are teaming up with Katalyst, a studio for social media co-founded by Ashton Kutcher, and HP to bring previously unaired episodes of Katalyst’s television drama "The Beautiful Life" to YouTube at www.youtube.com/TBL.



The TBL series is being presented without commercial interruption by HP in connection with its Create Change program. As part of "The Beautiful Life" experience on YouTube, Katalyst and HP have asked the show’s stars and viewers to participate by recording, tagging and posting video commentary about how they will create positive change in 2010.

We're excited to bring first-run original programming like this to the YouTube community. The first two episodes of the series, originally aired on the CW, will debut today, followed by the remaining three episodes beginning on December 21. We're sure devout TBL fans will enjoy this holiday treat, and we think the show is likely to find many new fans through YouTube.

George Strompolos, Strategic Partnerships, recently watched "The Beautiful Life - Episode 2."

More about → “The Beautiful Life” Makes Its YouTube Premiere

Curator of the Month: eGuiders

Our curator of the month is eGuiders.com, a site that asks Hollywood and Internet influencers, media mavens and other experts to select and review their favorite made-for-the-web content. On their YouTube channel, they've replicated much of the discovery experience that reflects the collective sensibilities of their team of curators (aka eGuiders) -- it's a team that includes nalts, mediocrefilms' Greg Benson, barelypolitical's Ben Relles, NPR's Margot Adler, blogger/technology advocate Robert Scoble and many more.



The channel hosts seven playlists divided by genre; each one serving as a quick overview of videos eGuiders have determined to be interesting, funny or entertaining. Says CEO/co-founder Marc Ostrick:

"Curation is, and will always be, subjective. Our approach is to allow our team to dig and search for content that they find exciting and valuable. Most of our eGuiders have a specific genre that they specialize in or have a proclivity towards, and we support their passion for online video by giving them a platform to share their sensibilities. However, at the end of the day, eGuiders is not about a single voice -- it is about the collection of many dynamic voices that contribute to overall goal of validating the Internet as a credible medium for storytellers."

The eGuiders channel also hosts original content focusing on different aspects of social media, all shot with HD pocket video tools like the Zi8 and Flip Ultra HD.

As December's guest curators, eGuiders have selected the four undiscovered gems you see in the homepage spotlight today and they've got many more quality clips at the ready as a reward for subscribing to their channel.

Mia Quagliarello, Community Manager, recently favorited "The Watch."

More about → Curator of the Month: eGuiders

2009: The Year in Spotlights

You might notice a periodic module on the homepage called Spotlight Videos (if you don't, add it to your homepage). These run a few times per week and showcase interesting and timely videos from our community and partners, all organized around an event or theme. We'll often give you advance notice of upcoming spotlights in the Creator's Corner, our hub for videographers. Subscribe to the Creator's Corner blog and look for posts titled "Creators Call-Outs" to find out about opportunities to appear on our homepage.

As we plan the spotlight calendar for 2010, feel free to drop a comment below with suggestions for themes, milestones, holidays, events, and community stories that need to be told. Though some of our most popular spotlights in '09 centered around newsy themes or celebrities that gripped the whole world (see list below), we are equally interested in highlighting the lesser-told stories of how individuals can use YouTube to catalyze movements, memes, and new forms of creativity.

And with that, 2009's most popular homepage spotlights were:

1. Michael Jackson's Greatest Hits
2. Michael Jackson Tribute
3. Reality TV (at the height of the Jon & Kate Plus 8 frenzy)
4. Susan Boyle / Britain's Got Talent
5. Iran Protests
6. Mythbusters: YouTube Edition
7. Hannah Montana Concert and Vlog
8. Twilight-Inspired Parodies and Rant
9. World Oceans Day
10. Before They Were Stars, featuring Adrian Grenier, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Catherine Zeta Jones in early roles

Surprised? What was your favorite spotlight? What should we do more or less of? Looking forward to hearing your feedback and ideas for 2010. Please leave a comment below.

Mia Quagliarello, Community Manager, recently favorited "PostSecret: Fifty People One Question."

More about → 2009: The Year in Spotlights

Learn How to Be a Tech Reviewer

With 40,000+ subscribers and a couple of hit videos, the folks behind the phonedog channel know a thing or two about making popular product-review videos (in their case, mobile phone reviews). In the spirit of the holidays, they've kindly agreed to share their secrets with you, to help the next generation of tech reviewers rise up on YouTube.

Ask any question you like about how to be an effective gadget reviewer by leaving a comment on -- or uploading a response video to -- this video. phonedog will review your questions and then make a tutorial video, uploaded around December 15, to help give you your start in this field. Take their advice or leave it, but definitely test it out, particularly on any hot new gadgets you or your friends receive this holiday season. We'll be featuring three of the most promising new reviewers, as selected by phonedog, on the YouTube homepage during the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in early January.

For more details, Noah from phonedog lays it all out:



Mia Quagliarello, Community Manager, recently favorited "The Muppets: Bohemian Rhapsody."

More about → Learn How to Be a Tech Reviewer

Curator of the Month: Michael Wesch

Anthropology professor Michael Wesch has the awesome job of studying YouTube and thinking about what it all means. We asked him to curate a playlist of his favorite videos, and he came back with an impressive list of clips that exemplify how the "wonderfully playful participatory culture" you've created manifests itself on YouTube. Four of those videos are on our homepage today, but he also wrote this thoughtful blog post to accompany his picks. Reading it, you'll get a sense of how a single video or person can create a ripple that swells into something so much bigger than ourselves.

What I love about online video is the way that it has allowed more people to join a global conversation. Television was a medium whose content was controlled by the few and made for the masses. It created a one-way conversation, and you had to be on TV to get your turn. We have all been excluded from that conversation for so long, it is no wonder that so many people are now jumping in (over 1 million videos uploaded online every day by my count).

One of my first favorites was Gary Brolsma's "Numa Numa dance," which he posted on Newgrounds.com in late 2004. When YouTube came along a few months later and made it so much easier for people to upload videos, thousands of people joined the dance. A search for "Numa Numa" now brings up over 125,000 videos, most of which are people doing their own rendition of the now-famous dance. And it is still going. [Recently], Brolsma led the Michigan State Band (and the whole stadium) doing the "Numa Numa."

There is a wonderfully playful participatory culture popping up all over the online video landscape.

A few days ago, I was having lunch with a guy who told me that he and his kids (ages 2 and 6) were working on their own rendition of blinktwice4y's YouTube hit "Mario Kart Love Song". When they are done, they will join hundreds of others who have also created their own rendition. And if you love participatory culture as much as I do, you might just find the more obscure ones to be the most entertaining (like matrock records jamming it out Brady Bunch style) and sometimes heartwarming (don't you just love these kids playing it live? Or how 'bout these young kids acting out the video? You just know they will be watching this with the tears rolling and hearts warming in 30 years. Or even this wedding serenade).

And speaking of weddings, almost everybody saw the JK Wedding Entrance Dance, but the remixes and remakes are a real treat. There is of course the "Divorce Dance," the live remakes at weddings everywhere (here's one from Spain) and even babies are getting in on it.

Or remember how OK Go made their career with that amazing treadmill dance? But what could be cooler than doing it live at your high school in front of all your friends? Of course, Granbury High was not the only remake. There are hundreds, yes, hundreds of groups of high school kids who somehow wrangled together several working treadmills, rolled them into high school auditoriums all over the world, and did their thing.

Undoubtedly, some people performing on YouTube are hoping to be the next Esmee Denters. It wasn't so long ago that Esmee was just a young girl singing (beautifully) in front of a crappy webcam -- until one day she was singing a Justin Timberlake song in front of a slightly better camera, which slowly panned right to reveal that none other than Justin Timberlake himself was in the room, and that he had just signed her to a record deal.

There's still a lot of unsigned talent out there, like Megan Tonjes or mandyvbats, who was brought to my attention by the absolutely amazing work of Kutiman, a musician who brought together snippets of YouTube artists from all over the world, working in so many genres, to create such beautiful music (which to me is the real YouTube orchestra).

But my favorite online video moments are those where the participatory culture spills out into the real world. There is probably no better example than the Free Hugs movement. Now three years old, it is still going, and it's global. But of course it wouldn't be participatory culture without the clever parody, which Greg Benson of mediocrefilms performed brilliantly by offering his "Deluxe Hugs" for $2.

The tools for such clever commentary and remixing are always growing, and several of my new favorites are coming from the creative uses of Auto-Tune. The Gregory Brothers have really mastered this with their Autotune the News series. Melodysheep is now bringing his amazing talents to set the beautiful insights of the best scientists of recent years (like Carl Sagan) to some moving music.

So much of this creativity relies on the freedom to remix and build on the material created by others, a freedom that's constantly being challenged. Which brings me to one of my more serious recommendations: Brett Gaylor's RIP: A Remix Manifesto. Or for a wonderfully artistic statement within the same theme, one of the most amazing videos on all of YouTube is Us by Blimvisible.

My favorite video of all time still remains MadV's "The Message." It comes from the early days of YouTube, when so many of us were still just amazed that we could reach out to millions of people through our webcams. MadV invited us to write a message for the world on our hands. The resulting compilation may just become one of those iconic videos that our descendants hundreds of years might look back on and say, "So this is what they had to say when they first wired up all those computers and cameras throughout the world..." He's now doing an HD version if you want to join in.

If you are interested in how we try to make sense of all of this in anthropological terms, check out "An Anthropological Introduction to YouTube," where my students and I discuss many of these videos and a whole bunch more:



Michael Wesch, Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology, Kansas State University

More about → Curator of the Month: Michael Wesch

YouTube Salutes Vets and Their Supporters

Today, we're shining the spotlight on the men and women who have bravely served -- and are presently serving -- in all branches of the U.S. military. Video has become a vital tool for current soldiers who are trying to communicate their wartime experience to the public and for older veterans who want to share their stories from past battles, like Lewis Bennett, the youngest member of the 84th District in World War II:



In addition, on the homepage, we're featuring content from those institutions and organizations that provide much-needed support to veterans. For example, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America has created a social network specifically for veterans and their families, while UCLA provides an adaptive sports therapy program for injured soldiers from the U.S. Army, including a regiment of rock climbing, wheelchair basketball, and table tennis. Here's a preview:



To see more video content from soldiers and veterans, please visit www.youtube.com/veterans.


Ramya Raghavan, YouTube Nonprofits & Activism, recently watched "Interview: Army Sgt. Valdez"

More about → YouTube Salutes Vets and Their Supporters

Release Notes: 10/1/09

News and notes from our most recent push:

Personalized recommendations on the homepage: Recommendations for you aren't just for users with accounts anymore. Now everyone can visit the YouTube homepage to get an answer to the question, "What should I watch today?" We'll automatically generate some suggestions based on your past viewing history. Of course, you'll still get better, more specific and more consistent recommendations by creating a YouTube account.

Beginning the conversion of remaining old channels: We're starting the process today to convert all remaining channels still using the older platform to the new one. (This migration could take up to two weeks to complete.) Once again, your comments and feedback have been instrumental in helping the new version evolve and grow (you can see a list of items we addressed here). Now customizing and editing your channel is a lot easier, with plenty of options for organizing videos, and the channel refocuses attention on engaging with you and your videos, which, after all, is the centerpiece of any YouTube experience. And we've got a lot of great ideas and input from you on things you'd like to see next.

YouTube in Portuguese (the European kind): We've added Portuguese (as spoken in Portugal) to the list of languages in which you can experience YouTube. Scroll down to the bottom of the page, find "Current Language" and click on "Show languages." You'll see options there for both Português and Português (Brasil).

New discount in Creator's Corner: Logitech is offering YouTube users in the U.S. 15% off select Webcams. Click here for the coupon code and link.

Always, The YouTube Team

More about → Release Notes: 10/1/09

Adopt a Feature: All Hail MikeandToneRP

Lots of good news to report since we last spoke about Adopt a Feature v2. This round, the number of submissions to the program more than doubled -- 76 videos were made about annotations, tags, Quicklist, mobile uploads, the customized homepage and a few other features -- and in all they were viewed 407,994 times. Annotations were the most popular feature to adopt by far, and you had a lot of fun with it: KOHPelord literally brought an annotation to life to explain the feature, while DeStorm envisioned a superhero named "Annotation Man" to save the day.

But the most-viewed video of the bunch, and thus the winner of this edition of Adopt a Feature, was MikeandToneRP's exploration of tags, featuring an off-kilter "Megan Fox," viewed nearly 80K times. Congratulations, Mike! Look out for a YouTube T-shirt headed your way.

In addition, many current and past Adopt a Feature videos have found permanent, loving homes in our Help Center, where they can "give back" by enlightening anyone looking for more info. The list below covers just some of the places you'll find your tutorial videos helping other users out:

• Quicklist featuring LaughingLeaf's video
• YouTube With My Webcam featuring incorporatedfx's video
• Learn More About Insight featuring BeforeAndAfterTV's video
• Subscribing to Videos featuring Yobachi2007's video
• How to Add Closed Captions and Subtitles featuring SandburgSpartans' video

Hunter Walk, Director, Product Management, recently favorited "Metal Heart by Keith Loutit - in HD."

More about → Adopt a Feature: All Hail MikeandToneRP

Look Inside a 1,024 Recipe Multivariate Experiment

Do small changes make a big difference? In the world of landing page testing, they certainly can. A few weeks ago, we ran one of the largest multivariate experiments ever: a 1,024 recipe experiment on 100% of our US-English homepage. Utilizing Google Website Optimizer, we made small changes to three sections on our homepage (see below), with the goal of increasing the number of people who signed up for an account. The results were impressive: the new page performed 15.7% better than the original, resulting in thousands more sign-ups and personalized views to the homepage every day.

Below is a screenshot of the homepage before the test and the three sections we focused on:


And here are examples of various fonts, messages, and colors we tested:

Section 1: (The words "Sign Up" were put in all caps)


Section 2: (We placed these bubble messages to the left of the word "Sign Up")


Section 3: (We experimented with these different banners in that area)




Can you guess which combination of elements performed the best?

(humming "Jeopardy" music)

If you guessed the Original "Sign Up" Font (section 1) + Red Bubble "Sign Up" (section 2) + White "Don't Just Watch, Participate" box (section 3), you win!

Winning Page:




While we could have hypothesized which elements result in greater conversions (for example, the color red is more eye-catching), multivariate testing reveals and proves the combinatorial impact of different configurations. Running tests like this also help guide our design process: instead of relying on our own ideas and intuition, you have a big part in steering us in the right direction. In fact, we plan on incorporating many of these elements in future evolutions of our homepage.

Curtis Lee, Product Marketing Manager, recently watched "KFC Freestyle Delonte West."

P.S. If you need assistance running tests on your website, there are many Google Website Optimizer authorized consultants who can help. Special thanks to VKI Studios who assisted on ours.

More about → Look Inside a 1,024 Recipe Multivariate Experiment

Mobile Uploads to YouTube Increase Exponentially

In the last six months, we've seen uploads from mobile phones to YouTube jump 1700%; just since last Friday, when the iPhone 3GS came out, uploads increased by 400% a day.

This growth represents three things coming together: new video-enabled phones on the market, improvements to the upload flow when you post a video to YouTube from your phone, and a new feature on YouTube that allows your videos to be quickly and effortlessly shared through your social networks. It takes just a minute to connect your YouTube account to your Facebook, Twitter and Google Reader accounts. Complete a simple, one-time connection on our upload page to allow all your friends and followers to get a real-time stream of your uploads to YouTube, which can be essential in this age of citizen reporting and ubiquitous sharing.

Already, you're teaching each other how to use this technology, you're doing product reviews and comparisons, and you're making test videos -- lots and lots of them. In fact, look at them closely -- where they're shot, who's in them -- and they stitch together a great patchwork of, well, life, from the little moments to the big ones:

* At grandpa's house
* In a Cambodian liquor store
* Observing carnivorous plants
* Drumming
* Swinging kids
* On a roadtrip
* At a wedding
* Capturing a wistful, rainy day
* "Live" from the Apple Store
* Squashing a can
* Pulling a giant stump out of the backyard
* Poolside, complete with a drop in the water (it keeps working)

Can you make your test video go viral through your social networks? If you can, we're willing to feature that video on our homepage. Upload a video from your phone, tag it with "mobiletest," share it with your social network, and Tweet us the link (so be sure to put "@youtube" and "mobiletest" in your message). We'll give you one week to spread your test video far and wide, after which we'll take a look at the most popular clips and feature a few on our homepage in a special "mobile upload" edition of our Spotlight Video.

So get goin', and if you want more info about playing and creating YouTube videos on your phone, go to http://www.youtube.com/mobile. There's a video on that page (or click here) that offers a step-by-step guide to uploading videos from your phone.

Posted by Dwipal Desai, Product Manager, and Mia Quagliarello, Community Manager

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